


Now that I'm Back with You Again

by musiclily88



Series: Wasted Youth// There Wasn't Much to Waste [15]
Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Angst, Depression, F/F, F/M, Gen, Implied/Referenced Abortion, Implied/Referenced Abuse, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Implied/Referenced Underage Sex, M/M, Past Relationship(s), Recreational Drug Use, Sexual Content, Smoking, Underage Drinking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-12
Updated: 2013-11-12
Packaged: 2018-01-01 06:19:17
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,124
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1041359
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/musiclily88/pseuds/musiclily88
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Time to raise hell.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Now that I'm Back with You Again

**Author's Note:**

> Sorry this section took so long to post. It's extra-long to make up for it, loves xx
> 
> As always, comments and criticism are wildly appreciated!

“Lou,” Liam called, jogging up to his car early in the schoolday. Louis inhaled sharply before opening the door.

“Hey.”

“Hey. So.” Liam slowed up, catching his breath shortly. “I’ve been thinking. When can we talk?”

“When? Um I have to make up some chemwork right this afternoon but, well. Whenever other than that.”

“What time is that through?”

“Half-four, thereabouts.”

“I’ll meet you here, then. By your car.”

“Are you angry at me?”

“Mate, that’s a pointless question at this stage. Let’s not discuss it.”

“I’m sorry for what I did wrong. I am sorry, I really am.”

“You don’t even know what I’m cross about.”

“But it’s me, I did something and I promise I didn’t mean to. Let me fix it.”

“We don’t have enough time to talk about it right now. This needs—we need to have a real discussion. I’ll meet you here after classes are out.”

Louis blinked, noting that somehow the agenda was utterly on Liam’s terms rather than his own. But he nodded slowly, taking this in stride as he had so many things over the past few days. “If that’s what you want, okay. All right.” He nodded, words shiny like tinfoil, covering up his feelings and keeping him contained.

 _I missed you,_ he didn’t say. _Please don’t say no._

***

He sat through his classes like a comatose doll, half-smiling yet glassy-eyed. Rather than taking notes, he doodled idly and stared at his hands, tracing the arteries and veins than ran beneath his skin. He pressed at the arteries, watching his blood pulse lazily forward. He forgot to glance at the clock.

He wondered what it might be like to die.

 

After his classes he stumbled into the corridor, but he couldn’t spot Liam. He couldn’t spot anyone he knew at all, actually; he seemed to recognize no classmates whatsoever.

He pivoted on his heel with determination, jaw clenched and mind made up.

Liam, surely, would approve of him fulfilling an academic imperative. Even if the reason he had missed class was because of Liam’s ill-advised and probably false proclamation of love. Louis was fucked.

He altered his swagger into a confident saunter, aware that two of his best assets were his hips and arse. He knew betterthan to unbutton his collar—after all _he_ wasn’t gagging for it, Ms. Paulson was. Louis just needed constant validation and affirmation that he was somehow worthwhile. Even if his only worth at this point was sexual gratification for someone else.

Louis smiled slow and easy, and he said all the right things, and his gazes lingered gently over her curves just as he had learned to do over years of being a sex object. He let her flirt with him and he responded teasingly, shyly, as though he might get in trouble if someone caught him. He tipped his jaw toward her and gave her hooded glances with pale-blue eyes. He worked her over. He knew what his easiest use was and he knew how to make people realize they wanted it—him. And it usually worked to his advantage.

Because somehow he lived to perform.

He bit his lower lip when he tallied the number of beakers in the back cabinets, Liam’s _I love you but_ rolling around in the back of his head on an endless loop. After an hour of tallying and counting and rounding up science equipment he found fairly useless, Louis found a clean scalpel and poked down hard on the pad of his thumb with the sharp edge.

“Seems like we’re nearly through for the afternoon, Louis,” Ms. Paulson said from the front of the room where she was cataloguing texts and lab books. “But it’s been lovely, having your help here. Lord knows I appreciate it.”

He pocketed the scalpel without thinking, not wanting her to see the mess he was inadvertently making. “Not to worry, it went really fast, actually.” Louis smirked. “Not to say I don’t deserve a reward, of course.”

“Hard work isn’t its own reward these days?” she responded, raising a brow. Louis noted that she swallowed raggedly, chin bobbing after she spoke.

“No, ma’am. Candy is dandy, but liquor is quicker.”

She exhaled a light laugh. “Thanks, Ogden Nash.”

“What?”

“The author. Ogden Nash.”

“Um. Is that who said it? I thought it was from that pop song.”

She looked at him with a bemused expression. “Oh, Lou. His stuff’s been published for more than 80 years.”

 _Lou._ Fuck if she wasn’t gone for him, he thought.

“My mistake. I could probably stand to read more, you know?”

“Sure. I suppose we all could.” She nodded, licking her lips once. “Anyway, you’re free to go for the afternoon, all right? See you tomorrow.”

“Right. Have a nice evening, Ms. Paulson.”

“You too, Louis.”

He left the room quickly, scalpel heavy in his pocket. He considered buying speed on his way home, mentally running through the names in his mobile, considering who might be holding. He paused to collect his belongings before leaving the building, squinting slightly against the afternoon light. He spotted Liam right away, leaning up against the bonnet of Louis’ car in the nearly empty carpark.

Louis stuck the tip of his thumb into his mouth, disliking the metallic tang of the blood that lingered there. He watched Liam smoke the last bit of a cigarette from his perch on the front of the car. He looked unfairly sexy, Louis thought, hips jutting forward, broad shoulders leaning back. Even in jeans, a ratty t-shirt, and a snapback—he was wearing a fucking _snapback_ because of course he was—Liam seemed unfairly wholesome and good-looking. Louis cursed internally, removing his thumb from his mouth.

He fished out his own pack of cigarettes and lit one absently-mindedly, waiting for Liam to speak.

“How was detention?” He dropped the butt on the ground, stomping the cherry out gently.

“Kinda dull. Didn’t so much mind staring at Ms. Paulson’s tits, I guess.”

“Right.” Liam’s brows furrowed, and he looked every part the concerned, doting parent. “Sure.”

“I’m having a sexual crisis. No big deal. That’s what the teen years are for, after all.”

“Yeah. I suppose so.”

“That and paralyzing self-doubt.”

“The glib thing’s getting old, Lou.”

“So will I, in time.” He inhaled deeply on his cigarette.

“Meaning?”

“Everyone gets sick of me eventually.”

“More like you never stop pushing people away.”

“What, my insistence that I’ll never fall in love is tantamount to me pushing you away?”

“You don’t—you just, you say that like it’s no big thing, like it’s just this week’s sexual crisis or passing fad. That’s not—this is important.”

“I’m everyone’s passing fad, though. That’s the thing.” He ashed his cigarette before inhaling again, dragging down hard on the filter.

“But you aren’t me, you aren’t inside my head and you don’t know what I’m thinking. You have no idea what my intentions are.”

“I’m sure they’re good, because you’re good.”

“I repeat. You have no idea what my intentions are.”

“So tell me.” Louis thought he knew, of course, knew that his compulsion to seek out the things that were worst for him would certainly apply to this, too. He knew he came down on people like a lightning storm, leaving them much worse for wear and all too willing to escape him. He knew what Liam wanted from life—or at least he thought he did.

He knew that Liam didn’t want Louis’ compulsive repetition to destroy himself.

“First off, your thumb’s bleeding. Second off, I still don’t know if I love you. I’m sorry, I just don’t know. I guess I just need time to figure it out. And I don’t mean to jerk you around by saying that, but I need to be honest, okay?”

Louis ashed his cigarette again, absently sticking the tip of his thumb into his mouth for a moment. “I’m too fucked up to love. I’m too fucked up to love and too fucked up for someone else to love.”

“You—you don’t know that! Because maybe if I figure out I do love you—if I figure out that I do, what does that say about me? What are you saying about me?”

“You’re too good for me, obviously. I’ve been saying that all along. You’re the only one who doesn’t believe me.”

“Why do you keep saying that?”

“Because it’s true. You want it all, you know, like the good normal thing, the real thing. Marriage and kids and the rest, and you’ll raise them right and you’ll tell them you love them because you will. And you’ll kiss them goodnight and read them stories and wash shampoo out of their eyes. And I don’t know how to do any of that.”

“You’re lying.”

“I’m lying? You don’t want that? Because I think you do.”

“You’re lying if you think you don’t know how to do that. You’re just so locked-in on hating yourself that you think you can’t do anything good.”

“And what if I can’t?”

“If I can, so can you. Look at me, look at the shit that’s gone down in my life, yeah?”

“We’re not all as resilient as you, though, are we.”

“If I can fall in love, so can you.” Liam threw one arm out, pointing at Louis brashly.

“But you don’t know if you _are_ in love, though. Do you.”

“I’ve been in love before, Louis.”

“With who?” he growled, dropping his cigarette.

“Maybe you don’t know him.”

“Liam. Come on.”

Liam shook his head resignedly, sighing. “Zayn, obviously. Back when—what, two girlfriends ago? Stupidly in love with him, of course, before he gave me the slightest glance. Before I got, you know. Hot or whatever.”

Louis thought his throat might close up. “I refuse to believe you were anything other than hot,” he ground out, voice tight and low. _Of course of course of course_ ran rampant in the back of his mind.

“Not the point, okay.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?” he whispered stonily.

“What, that I used to be in love with my best friend? When you kept crowing on about how I could never want you and how he was the obvious choice? When all I wanted was you, really, and you refused to believe me? Obviously I didn’t want you to be right. I didn’t want to hurt you. Because I do want to be with you, but I want you to stop getting in your own way.”

“Getting in my own way? It sounds like I’m getting in _your_ way. You two could be—together, you’ll be good together.”

“Don’t tell me what to want, Lou, and don’t tell me what to do, okay?”

“I know that I can’t fall in love, okay. Don’t tell me I can.”

“You’ve never been wrong before?”

“Have you?”

“Louis, fuck. I want to be with you, I want to be in this for real, but I need to—I mean, I need this to be going somewhere.”

“Somewhere other than where it is now?”

“I just—do we even want the same things?”

“I want you. But I understand why you don’t want me.”

 _“I do want you._ That’s my entire point. But maybe I want a future with you, and if you can’t see that, do that, I mean. I need to know. Before I figure out—stuff.”

“Stuff?”

“How deeply to invest in—this. All this.”

“Stop playing headgames with me, I swear to god.”

“I’m not. Not on purpose, I mean. I don’t mean to be.”

“So what is it you want, then? I’m asking here, I just want to know, no matter what it means for me. I just want to know.”

“I don’t know, Louis, I don’t know!”

“Well, you need to figure it out.”

“I do.”

“You just—yeah. You need time, I get it. To figure it out.”

“Yeah. Yeah, you’re right.”

“So what are we going to do?”

“We—fuck, I don’t even want to say it.”

“Say it, please. Please. I need you to say it. Otherwise it’s not real and I can just—act like I can talk you out of it. So I need you to say it.”

“I think we—I think that maybe we should. Maybe we should take a break. For awhile. So I can figure out what I want and you can figure out what you want. It’s—it’s not fair for me to tie you down if we don’t know the end game. And. And maybe I’m not the right end game for you at all. Even if I eventually want to be. I can’t do that to you without—cause, like.

“Fuck,” Louis breathed. “I didn’t think you’d really say it.”

“I don’t want it to be necessary. I don’t want to do it.”

Louis sniffled, scrubbing his face roughly. “Fuck.”

Liam reached out to wrap his hand around the back of Louis’ neck. “I’m sorry.”

“I know you are.” Louis wriggled out of Liam’s grasp. “What does this mean, then? What’s going to happen now?”

“Just—we give each other some time and then we talk about it.”

“After being apart.”

“Right.”

“How apart?”

“What do you mean?”

“Do—do you need me to stop talking to you, like, totally?”

_“No.”_

“I don’t understand,” Louis whispered, jaw tight, mouth dry. “What do I do? What do you want me to do?”

“Don’t leave me alone.” Liam leaned forward, dropping his forehead to Louis’ shoulder. Louis heard him sniff and inhale sharply, and it made his own eyes prick wetly.

“I’m not—I won’t. I just don’t understand what you want from me.”

“That’s the problem,” Liam said, his voice muffled by Louis’ shoulder. “I don’t know what I even want at all.”

“Me?”

“I do want you.”

“I hate this.” Louis curled his face sideways into the skin of Liam’s neck.

“It’s for the best.”

“You want to get married someday, don’t you?”

“I—yeah I think I do.”

“Then we really do have shit to figure out.”

“I hate it,” Liam sobbed out quietly, face still buried against Louis. “I want it to stop.”

Louis exhaled, steeling himself. “But now you’re once again free to go sleep with whoever you wan. Maybe start with Zayn, get some shit sorted between you two.”

“Stop it.”

“No really, this could be a helpful learning experience for you. Work out some sexual tension.”

“Please stop it. Now.”

“Right. Sorry.”

“I hate this.”

“I know.”

“Do we have to do it?”

“Probably.”

Liam surged forward, planting a rough kiss on Louis’ temple. “This has nothing to do with—this isn’t because I don’t like you. It’s because I do. That’s why I have to do this.”

“Yeah. Right. Still feels like rejection, you know.”

“I think I’m on my way to falling in love with you, you fuckwit, and I need to figure out if I’m okay with it.”

“You’re hot when you’re angry at me.”

“Then I must be hot all the time, because lately you insist on acting like a cunt.”

“Yeah. I do that.”

“I’m used to it.”

“I don’t just want you to be used to me, all right. I want you to—like, actually be happy or whatever. Not just put up with whatever’s presented to you.”

“I don’t do that.”

“No, I know. This is a good thing, like. It means you’re making sure you’re doing what you want. Even if it sucks for now. And maybe it’ll keep sucking. I don’t know.”

“I don’t want it to.”

“Neither do I.”

***

Louis called Harry because _of course he did_ and he got drunk and needy and physically affectionate (or _physically aggressive_ as it might otherwise be deemed).

 

He cuddled up into Harry’s side as soon as he stepped through the door, tears angry and unshed in his eyes. Harry wrapped both arms around his neck, clinging on tightly. “It’s all right. You’re okay. You’re good, you’re lovely. Come on, babe. What’s—”

Louis dropped where he stood, sitting down hard on the floor. Harry swooped down beside him, rubbing his back and holding on tight to one bicep. “You’re all right. It’s okay, Lou, yeah?”

“No,” Louis croaked. “Not really.”

“No? Okay, no. What happened?”

“Liam broke up with me.”

“Excuse me?”

“He broke up with me because I’m a bad person.”

“That’s not true.”

“Well he didn’t say it but he meant it.”

“That’s ridic—that’s just not true. What did he actually say?”

Louis wiped his nose on the back of his hand. “That he needs to figure out what he wants because I can’t fall in love and he wants to like get married someday? With like kids or something and probably a dog or maybe a bunch of dogs. And I’m just—too fucked for that, shit, like my heart’s a bruised piece of fucking meat at this point and I can’t do all of that. Any of that.” He leaned sideways, dropping his head into Harry’s lap.

“Okay. Fine. All right. When did this happen?” Harry raked his hands through Louis’ hair roughly, pressing his fingers into his tender scalp.

“Um, like two hours ago.” Louis swung an arm out, gesturing to the two-nearly-three empty bottles of wine behind him in the foyer. “He broke up with me and I’m not fine.”

“I can see that,” Harry added softly, continuing to run his fingers through Louis’ hair. “How can I help?”

“I don’t know.” Louis buried his face deeper into Harry’s lap.

“Come here.” Harry snaked an arm around Louis’ waist and hauled him into a seated position. “Let’s get you upstairs, how about,” he said into Louis’ upturned ear.

“Don’t want to go anywhere.”

“We’re not going anywhere, just getting you to bed, okay?”

“What?” Louis turned sideways, his face not even an inch from Harry’s own. “You coming on to me?”

“Stop it, Lou,” Harry whispered, licking his lips.

“Just another way I’m a bad person.”

“No. Stop it because you don’t really want it.”

“Maybe I do.”

“You’re hurt and fucking frustrated and you’re sad, okay. And you need to let me put you to bed.” Harry hauled Louis up again, standing them both up precariously. They both wobbled as they made it upright, but Harry steadied them carefully.

“Yeah? You gonna put me to bed? You’re amazing in that respect. I remember.”

“Hey,” Harry responded, hurt tingeing his voice slightly.

“I do remember though. Think about you a lot.” Louis roped an arm around Harry’s shoulders, ducking in to speak into his ear.

“Yeah, sure. I’m kind of unforgettable.” Harry shuffled them toward the steps and led Louis up the staircase gently, one arm around his waist.

“You’re lovely ‘s what you are. Don’t know why you put up with me,” Louis said at the top landing, disentangling himself from Harry so he could make eye contact.

“Yes you do.” Harry stepped toward Louis’ room, trusting the latter to follow him.

“It can’t just because you want to fuck me, you’d have given up long ago if that was just the thing.” He swung open the door to this untidy room and stalked inside, immediately sank onto his bed.

“That’s not the thing, Lou.” Harry stood at the foot of the bed and shoved his hands into his pockets.

“It’s not the thing? What’s the thing, then,” Louis said next, ripping his stupid t-shirt off his torso and over his head. He toed his shoes off and kicked them far away, curling up against the headboard with an expectant look in his eye.

Harry slunk forward, placing one knee onto the duvet at the end of the bed. He swung his other leg up so he was effectively kneeling over Louis, predatory and childish all in one.

“What is it? The thing, then,” Louis repeated, eyes hooded as he watched Harry advance upon him.

“You know why.” Harry walked forward on his knees, moving between Louis’ legs.

“Do I?”

“You probably do.” Harry ducked down, bracketing his arms around Louis’ torso.

“I’m drunk. How bout you explain it to me.” Louis wrapped his arms around Harry’s neck, pulling him in close.

“I love you.”

Louis’ arms went slack, and he dropped them to the duvet. “You don’t.”

“Of course I do.”

“No, you don’t.”

“Stop.” Harry ducked in close, his face near Louis’ so their breaths intermingled. “Don’t say that.” Harry’s lips ghosted around Louis’ mouth and his cheekbones. “Not to me.”

“You don’t.” He shoved his lips against Harry, tonguing against his mouth and the inside of cheeks and the inside of his lips. He made himself sloppy, their teeth crashing together raggedly. He heard Harry gasp against him, felt the inhale-exhale of breath. Louis backed away.

“I do.” Harry ground down against him, half-oblivious to Louis’ agony and halfway responding to it the best way he knew how. He planted his hands against Louis’ wrists, pinning him gently against the mattress. “I promise I do.”

Louis closed his eyes, feeling tears well up beneath his lids. “Please. Just.” He surged up to kiss Harry again, to wind their tongues together slowly, to press their bodies against one another. He retreated gently. “Just, not right now.”

“Okay.” Harry planted a chaste peck on Louis’ brow, moving off him to spoon their bodies together neatly. “Whatever you need.” He tucked one arm around Louis’ waist, tucking his own front against Louis’ back.

“Thank you.”

“Don’t need to thank me.”

“Thanks for being here.”

“You really don’t need to thank me, okay.”

Louis backed his arse against Harry’s pelvis slowly. “Don’t I?”

“No you—no, you really don’t.” Harry ducked forward to kiss Louis’ ear, then retreated to the edge of the mattress. “Hold on.” He fished his mobile from his pocket before Louis even realized it was buzzing. “Hello?” he asked, side-stepping off the bed and exiting to enter the bathroom.

Louis struggled pointlessly to hear what Harry was saying, but the door and the buzzing in his head prevented it. “Oh god.” He splayed out starfish-style atop the duvet and tried to remember a recent time when he felt like _not_ puking. Nothing came to mind.

Harry opened the bathroom door and shoved his mobile into the impossibly tiny pocket of his jeans.

“Hey! Hey, there you are. What—no, wait, why, yes, why do you hate me? I think you didn’t answer that for me before. If I recall correctly. Also you have on very tight jeans.”

“You’re making things up. I still don’t hate you, Lou. I still think you’re lovely,” Harry responded in wry exasperation, propping himself on the edge of the bed again.

“No you don’t. You think I’m drunk and sad, which I am.” Louis remained spread out across the top of his duvet, shutting his eyes.

“You’re sad right now, but you won’t feel sad forever.” Harry planted a kiss on Louis’ jaw, licking slightly against the stubble there.

“I’ll be drunk forever, though, if I can help it.”

“That’s the spirit.”

“Who were you talking to? You weren’t wanking in my bathroom, were you? Without me!”

“No, I wasn’t. Zayn called.”

“Ohh, right. Zayn, your new plaything.” Louis paused, narrowing his eyes. “Or are you his new plaything? He’s kind of dominating, to be honest, it’s really rude, actually. Hot in a weird way, but don’t tell him that.”

“You’re a bit drunk.”

“Yeah, probably. Drunk enough to tell you that you’re too good for him. He’ll hurt your heart, your feelings. Like me. Like I do. Like I did to you already.”

“You’re fine, you know. I’m okay.”

“He’ll hurt you worse than I did.”

“Stop it, please.”

“Okay,” Louis sighed, closing his eyes. “This hurts now. Everything. What will make me feel better, Haz? Pretty things? Pretty people? What helps when you hate yourself?”

“I don’t know, babe.”

“Retail therapy? Do you want to go shopping? Does that actually help, do you know?”

“I have no idea.” Harry patted at Louis’ hair gently, curling into him haphazardly.

“It might do.”

“It might,” he agreed.

“Are we going shopping then?”

“Probably shouldn’t.”

“Just cuz I’m drunk? You can drive, you know, I trust you,” Louis offered magnanimously, trying to tuck their bodies together.

“Not that. I invited Zayn over.”

“You what.”

“I invited him over?”

Louis removed his body from Harry’s. “You invited my ex-boyfriend’s best friend over. Who has a hard-on for you. Who I’ve fucked. On the eve of my break up. And this seemed like a good idea?”

“Shit, Lou. You’re friends, aren’t you? I thought you’d want him to, I dunno, talk you down.” Harry scrambled away from the bed, backing against the wall.

Louis snuffled, tucking himself into a ball against his duvet. “Shouldn’t he be talking down his best friend?”

“His actions aren’t up to me.”

“Oh no?” Louis asked, brightening despite himself. “Haven’t properly dominated him yet then?”

Harry frowned, sitting down against the far wall. “Me? Really? Who am I likely to dominate even on a good day?”

“Okay fine. Fair point.”

“Yeah. So. This is the time for your friends to be by your side.”

“Liam needs his friend, he needs Zayn more.” Louis threw his arm over his face, blocking out the middling light of his room. “He’s not my friend.”

“Tell Zayn, not me,” Harry pointed out. “I just talked to him and he offered to come here, all right. Didn’t ask.”

“He’s just gonna berate me for being a dick.”

“Is he really?”

“He hates me, like a lot. So, most likely he will.” Louis tipped his head back. “He thinks you’re hot though. Maybe he’ll be nice to me on your account.”

“Whatever you say, Lou.”

“You are hot, though. Just I’m too drunk to take advantage of you, yeah?”

“That’s not what I was implying.”

“You’re beautiful.” Louis removed the arm from his face, turning to give Harry a significant look.

“Thanks.”

“You’re welcome. If I ask nice, will you kiss me again?”

“I might.”

“Please, Harry, would you please kiss me? I hate to be needy and pathetic but I—”

“You’re not pathetic.”

“No, I am. But I want to kiss you. I’ve wanted to do that for a long while now, you know, for like a long while. And I’m sorry I’ve been mean to you, which I know I have. Cutting you off and shutting you out. I didn’t mean to? Didn’t mean to be cruel.”

“You did it without meaning to, you’re saying?”

“I was mean without meaning, yeah, that’s it. Sorry. Ignore the—what, puns, alliteration, whatever. I don’t pay attention during class. Too busy flirting with the skirts.”

“Excuse me?”

“Oh, I’m having a sexual crisis! I like to stare at tits all of a sudden.”

“This is new?” Harry said in dubious tones.

“For me, yeah, like.”

“You’re quite drunk, are you.”

“Yes. Sorry.”

“You’re all right. You going to try to sleep a bit?” Harry asked kindly, voice light.

“No. Not til Zayn gets here. Not til I say hello.”

“Really?”

“You invited him. He’s needed at Liam’s and yet he came for you. I figured the least I could do is be—”

“Be a dick? Be mean to the friend I invited over to try to take care of you?” Harry’s voice was still notably even. Louis envied him that calm.

“You don’t know him. You think he means the best but he just—he wants the worst. For you and me, all across the board.”

“Hey, Lou, you fucked him.”

“Yeah. He’s hot, and I hate myself. Of course I fucked him.”

“So what of me?”

“You didn’t.”

“What if I did?”

“You didn’t!” Louis said in bright, questioning tones. “Did you?”

“Did I?”

“You didn’t.”

“No. I haven’t.”

They both fell silent, Louis humming slightly below his breath. Somewhere in the back of his mind he heard the doorbell chime, but he refused to rouse himself to answer it. Instead he felt Harry disentangle their bodies, and he heard him leave the room.

“Hey, mate,” Zayn called, dropping onto Louis’s body with a heavy sigh.

“You came!” Louis said, exhaling loudly at the added weight on his chest. “Am I too pretty for you to stay away?”

“You’re seriously overestimating the value of your own appeal.”

“No I’m not. Cuz here you are. Why aren’t you with Liam?” Louis asked next, suddenly concerned and confused.

“Liam kicked me out.”

Louis scoffed. “Without even a kiss good-bye? He kicked you out of bed just like that?”

“Shut up. He’s going boxing because you broke up.”

“He broke up with me.”

“Yeah. I know.”

“He used to be in love with you,” Louis added quietly, barely daring to disturb the air around their bodies.

“Shut up,” Zayn snapped.

“No, it’s true. I’m not a liar. I’m not.”

“Shut up anyway!”

“I’m not going to cry on you.”

“That’s not why I’m here.”

“You’re not going to hit me, are you?”

“No.”

“Watching you and Harry make out won’t cheer me up, by the way.”

“Shut up now.” Zayn elbowed Louis in the stomach.

“Just tell me why you’re here.”

“Liam made me promise to check on you.”

“He knows you hate me, right?”

“He also knows he broke your heart.”

“That’s a fallacy actually. I’ve been reliably informed I don’t have a heart, okay. It’s been too stomped-up beneath everyone’s shoes. Bruised like burger meat.”

“Stop being dramatic.”

“No. Where’s Harry?”

“We’re doing this in shifts. He needed water and a biscuit.”

“Liar. He’s wanking in my bathroom, isn’t he. I told him not to do that.”

“He’s not wanking in your bathroom.”

“How would you know?”

“Because the door is open and the bathroom is empty.”

“He’s hiding?”

“No, he’s sitting at the kitchen table with your little sister eating a snack. Like a toddler.”

“Be nice to him.”

“No.”

“Why are you really here?”

“Liam told me to come over. Niall went boxing with him and apparently that means I need to take responsibility for you.”

“He did not,” Louis breathed, shutting his eyes tightly.

“Yeah he did, you idiot.”

“Okay, whatever.” He paused, trying to catch his breath. “Also your stupid boney hip is poking at my dick and it’s too pretty to get mushed about like this.”

“I’ve seen prettier.”

“Your own doesn’t count.”

“It does,” Zayn insisted.

Louis shifted and rolled on top of Zayn, pressing their torsos and pelvises together.

“Ow!” Zayn cried, moving his hips away from their contact. “You’re a handful.”

“Mouthful, really.”

“Shut up.”

“I hate you,” Louis whispered, wrapping his arms around Zayn’s body and dragging him close.

**Author's Note:**

> 1\. I'm sorry  
> 2\. I PROMISE IT WILL BE WORTH IT EVENTUALLY  
> 3\. Smut next time
> 
> tumblr: musiclily


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